Numerous efforts have been undertaken to develop a pollution-free electrically-powered vehicle as an alternative to vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. The primary limitation to the implementation of battery power as an alternative to the internal combustion engine has been the limited amount of energy that can be stored in a battery system of acceptable size and weight; As a result of this limited energy storage capacity and the failure of the industry to develop a suitable charging system, the electric vehicles currently available or proposed have a range of only about sixty to eighty miles before recharging and thus have limited utility.
Another shortcoming of electric vehicles related to the problem of limited range is the need for lengthy, stationary battery recharging. This need not only requires downtime for the vehicle, but consumes energy derived from traditional sources, thus undermining the zero-emissions objective of the electric vehicle concept. While electrically powered vehicles would eliminate the consumption of fossil fuel during use, the generation of the power necessary to recharge the vehicle's batteries requires fossil fuel consumption. Thus, pollution is shifted from a moveable source to a fixed source. While emissions from such a stationary source may be easier to control than those generated by automobiles powered by internal combustion engines, they would still prevent the zero-emissions concept of electric car usage from being fully attained.
Thus, to realize fully many of the potential benefits of electrically powered vehicles, it is first necessary to provide a mechanism for extending the effective range of the vehicle. It is also important that an increase in range be achieved without significantly increasing the overall vehicle weight and thus decreasing performance. Moreover, it has been recognized that there is a definite need to reduce the down-time for re-charging, much less the energy costs attendant to recharging. Without these advances, widespread acceptance of such vehicles is unlikely. Even with these advances, however, it is also important that the mechanism for extending the vehicle's range be non-polluting. In this regard, the mechanism should obviate the need for stationary battery recharging and preferably give off zero emissions. The power system of the present invention obtains these results.